


Victim

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, M/M, Serial killer groupie fic, yeah idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:18:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even serial killers have admirers and, after all, two is company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> "What's one less person on the face of the earth, anyway?" - Ted Bundy

The TV news plays the same report nigh on all day with a reporter on location, standing in the street in front of police tape. In the background is a night club with police and CSI swarming around it. Another body has been found.

This time it was twenty-seven-year-old Brandon Belsky, found brutally murdered in the bathroom of Bar Sinister in down town Los Angeles. Reports say he looks alike to the other victims, but the scene of the crime is too graphic to show on TV. Another reporter stands in a place completely irrelevant, a bar that Belsky used to DJ in, saying the same thing as everybody else.

Mike mutes the volume on the TV and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. In front of him he has a copy of every newspaper he could find that ran the story and stares at Brandon Belsky’s smiling face with barely masked hatred. What’s so good about him, anyway? It’s not as if he’s even that good looking. And he obviously straightens his hair.

It doesn’t fit the pattern at all. Mike kicks the newspapers from the table and stomps into the kitchen to get a beer. There’s only Bud Light left because his room mate is an inconsiderate asshole and always drinks the last of the Corona without buying more. Fucking jerk. It’ll do, though. The beer washes down his immediate anger and he takes a deep breath.

Brandon Belsky is not a natural blonde. Or, rather, was not. All he is now is worm food. Mike doesn’t need the images that are too graphic for the television to know exactly how the scene would have looked. Belsky will have been raped and, whilst he was still alive, his face would have been carved into. He’ll have been stabbed several times in the torso, hands, neck and face and a trophy would have been taken from him. Either a lock of his hair or a piece of his skin.

But the victim doesn’t fit. It’s got to be the same guy – the news reporter’s upsettingly vague details made that much obvious. All along the police have wondered if there was an accomplice - someone helping out, learning. And now Mike knows for sure that there is. And this second person has taken over the killing.

The TV set in the living room flashes with bright red, breaking news banners and Mike hurries in to turn it up. A new revelation at the crime scene says the reporter. A footprint has been found in the grime on the bathroom floor near the body.

So this apprentice murderer has not only got the wrong victim, but he’s given the game away, too.

***

Brad sits in the cold, stainless steel chair and takes a shaky breath. His wrists ache, the shackles are so tight, and he has lost all feeling in his toes. The collar pinning his neck against the back of the chair isn’t warming up and the icy touch makes his entire body break out in goose pimples.

He can see through the gaps in the floor boards above him. Light streams through in uneven slashes, barely illuminating the darkness of the basement. He had bought this chair from a hardware store. It was meant to be a garden decoration – it won’t rust, any rain water will seep through the holes in the seat and arms of the chair and it can simply be wiped down. The shackles he had to make, painstakingly welding them in place so they can never be broken. The locks weren’t up to him, and he has no idea where the key is.

This was never meant for him. This was meant for when the police coverage of the clubs got too much and they had to bring their victims home. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

A shadow falls across him and he looks up to see somebody cross the kitchen above him. The basement door opens and the stairs creek. He tries to twist his head to see behind him but the collar digs into his neck and he winces in pain.

“I’m sorry,” he says before the footsteps even reach the bottom of the stairs. “I’m so sorry. It was one fucking mistake.”

“One mistake that is going to lead the police right to my front door, Brad. I gave you clear instructions. What are you, new?”

Brad shivers and looks up. The eyes of a killer stare down at him. Before all of this he and Chester were friends, and even when the killing began he had never been scared. But now he knows how it feels to be one of those boys. This is the end – everything in his life is going to lead to him being found dead.

“That kid, he wasn’t like the rest of them. Now they think I’m a sloppy motherfucker. I should have never trusted you to do this.”

Brad nods.

Chester laughs and grabs his hand, twisting hard until three of his fingers crack then break. The pain is agonising and he howls.

“Don’t you dare just give in.”

“You’re just going to kill me anyway, what’s the point?” Brad hisses through his teeth. He looks down at his right hand and the way his fingers are pointing awkwardly in different directions and tries hard not to cry.

“Not right now,” Chester says. He goes over to the work bench drilled into the wall and picks up a long knife. He stalks back over to where Brad sits and grins. “I’m going to make this worthwhile.”

***

Two weeks later there had been no more reports of killings, until the body of Bradford Delson was found behind the police station. He has been brutally raped, tortured and then murdered.

Mike smiled to himself as he read the paper at his desk. He carefully tore out the article and proceeded to investigate Brad Delson and trying not to grin.

***

The knock at the door catches him off guard. After the Brad debacle Chester had moved into an apartment block near Venice Beach. The name under the buzzer downstairs reads A. Davidson after the previous owner. The bills are paid using Brad’s money and they are always paid on time. Nobody has any reason to knock on his door.

What’s more worrying is that they got into the building at all. People are far too polite – for all they know the person they held the door open for is on their way to break into their apartment. Chester knows very well that being a trusting person is not a good personality trait.

He opens the door wearing big, plastic glasses, a button down shirt and a smile like he’s expecting someone. When his eyes fall on the stranger on his doorstep his smile falters but he doesn’t let on that his palms are sweating.

“Hey. Chester, right?”

Chester’s eyes darken and his smile tightens. “Can I help you?”

“Don’t you want to know how I found you?”

“I don’t know you,” Chester says calmly.

“No,” the stranger says, “but I know you. I know about Brad.”

“Look, mister, I’m going to go inside and lock my door. And if you’re not gone in five minutes I’m calling the cops.”

“I’m Mike,” the stranger says, undeterred, “and I know you killed those people. I know Brad was responsible for Brandon so you killed him. And I know you’re biding your time to kill again. I also know you’re never going to call the cops, ever, because if you do they’ll find out you’re using a dead man’s money to pay your utility bills. They’ll find everything out.”

Chester doesn’t flinch even though he feels like he’s been slapped. “If I’m a murderer why shouldn’t I just let you in and then butcher your sorry ass?”

“Because I’m not like them,” Mike says, “I’m like you. I’ve been admiring your work from afar.”

Chester grabs his hand and drags Mike inside, hard. Within seconds he has him pinned to the other side of the door and is tearing at his shirt. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says as he tosses the shirt to one side, “I just want to make sure you’re not a cop.”

Mike laughs and nods as if he does this all the time and lets Chester pat him down, checking him for wires.

“I’m just going to kill you, Mike.”

“No you’re not. We’ve been over this. Plus I left your personal details on my computer and if I’m not home by nine my room mate will find them and call the cops. Killing me isn’t in your best interests, I’m afraid.”

Chester scowls and walks over to the couch, sitting down. He watches Mike as he moves around the living room, picking things up and putting them down. “Look with your fucking eyes, asshole. What do you want from me? You want money?”

“I want to help you.”

“You can’t help me,” Chester laughs, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

Mike reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a tatty photograph. He unfolds it and dumps it on the table in front of Chester, pointing at it. “Her name is Marina Carlson. She’s twenty five, she’s a model and she lives in a model apartment near Hollywood.”

Chester raises an eyebrow and looks down at the photo. The girl in the picture is looking back over her shoulder, her natural blonde hair blowing in some fake wind and her blue eyes shining. “She’s a chick.”

Reaching out to take the photograph back Mike smiles smugly. “She was born Martin Carlson, and she’s awaiting her gender reassignment surgery.”

After a moment of silence Chester nods appreciatively. “This is a trap.”

“No,” Mike says. “I work for a private investigation company and I did some digging on you. The cops must be dumb as a bag of hammers if they haven’t realised that Brad is still paying rent. They didn’t even connect you to him. But I did. I found out that the pair of you went to schools in different states – Brad in California and you in Phoenix. You didn’t go to college and moved here to be a tattoo artist.

“After doing grunt work in a couple of tattoo studios and never actually being allowed to touch a tattoo gun you quit and made a load of money from a compensation claim which was faker than Marina Carlson’s tits and that is how you support yourself today. You rob your victims before you kill them – withdrawing thousands from their bank and putting it into separate accounts under false business names.”

Chester nods. “So, you’re stalking me, is that it?”

Mike raises a hand to stop him. “I’m not finished,” he says. “Before he was found dead in the bar Brandon Belsky paid around five hundred dollars to Non-disclosure Agreement Records; two hundred to USB Couriers Services; seven hundred to a company registered in the UK called Serendipity. He also paid five hundred dollars for a new set of turntables on eBay but cancelled the transaction and requested that the money be returned to another bank account because he was having difficulty with his bank. That bank account was registered to a Mrs C. Belsky. His wife. Of whom there is CCTV footage as she goes into the bank to set up an account.”

Chester shrugs. “And?”

“And you look very good in a wig, Chester,” Mike says. “But I wouldn’t have said that brown was really your colour.”

Chester laughs and claps. Mike stands at the other side of the room trying not to look nervous. He shifts his weight and digs his hands deep into his pockets. “Well done,” Chester tells him. “So, you have all of this dirt on me but I don’t know anything about you. And that isn’t how this works. You don’t barge into my home demanding that I let you help me hunt down pretty boys who have their life handed to them on a silver platter.”

He gets to his feet and saunters over to where Mike is standing frozen in place in front of the television and only stops when their noses brush. “You’re not in control of anything when you’re with me. I have access to everything – who you contact, your bank account. Everything. And I can cut you off, or up, whenever I want to. And if you ever even think about going to the cops I will already have you in pieces and buried under the floorboards of your own house before you can dial nine-one-one, you get that?”

Mike nods, open mouthed. He wraps an arm around Chester’s neck and kisses him roughly.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The more I looked at people, the more I hated them." - Charles Starkweather

Chester won’t go after Marina Carlson. He only brings it up when Mike is on his knees in front of him, his dick in his hand. Mike sits back on his heels and frowns, annoyed.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because she’s paying for her surgery herself.”

Mike blinks and crosses his arms. Chester reaches behind him and grabs a scalpel from the kitchen counter and brandishes it menacingly until Mike moves forward, taking him back in his mouth.

“I thought you understood the point,” Chester says, gripping Mike’s hair loosely and hissing through his teeth. “Fuck. The point is some people are just handed a good life and others work tooth and nail for it, and the people given it don’t fucking appreciate it.”

Mike sucks lightly and digs his hands into Chester’s ass, mulling it over. If that’s the case then Brad should have met his maker a long time ago, but Chester decided to keep him around for some reason anyway. During his digging Mike found out that Brad went to law school completely funded by his rich father and dropped out before his final exams. He could have gone on to pass the bar and become a successful lawyer but instead he pissed his daddy’s money away on woman and beer and nothing else.

Brad Delson was an ungrateful motherfucker and he should have been eliminated from this particular equation before he could have botched Brandon’s murder so horrendously.

Chester comes with a quiet gasp, tugging on Mike’s hair until he winces. He gets to his feet and spits into the waste paper basket by the bed and wipes his mouth. He wipes his hands on his jeans and pops his neck, wincing. “That doesn’t explain Brad,” he says casually.

Something in Chester’s eyes darkens and he stares at him. “Brad was a different case entirely,” he says as he fastens his fly.

“As near as I can tell he was exactly like the others. Save for Brandon.”

Chester shoves Mike hard, the heels of his hands slamming against his collar bone and pushing him backwards. Mike loses his footing and falls, hitting the floor hard. He looks up into Chester’s angry face and is suddenly scared – all of his confidence has gone, and all he can think is he didn’t realise what a fine line he was walking.

“Since you know so much about him you’ll know that Brad volunteered at the needle exchange every weekend when he was free from college and during his time there one of the apparently clean users gave him HIV. After that he dropped out and gave up and took advantage of everything and everyone and I think he was fucking entitled to. So don’t you tell me how I should or shouldn’t have dealt with Brad, you little fucking rat.”

He steps over where Mike lies on the floor, stricken with fear, and storms away into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. During his time as a private investigator Mike had learned to keep a distance from the people he had to investigate and little shocked him. But this revelation, Brad’s story has truly left him speechless.

He lies back and stares at the damp stain in the corner of the bedroom ceiling and thinks about what he’s getting himself into.

***

Chester doesn’t speak to him much after that and only ever meets his eyes to give him a look that makes his blood run cold. This was all he had wanted since the killings started, he had wanted to be a part of it. He had never really thought about the fact that Chester was killing in cold blood, that he wasn’t going to become his best friend.

When the sun sets, two nights after their argument about Brad, Chester makes quick and quiet trips to the van he has parked on the street under the cover of darkness. Mike sits on the arm of the sofa smoking a cigarette and picking his finger nails. When Chester comes back up for the last time he stares at Mike until he gets the hint and gets up, heading down to the van.

He fastens his belt and Chester gives him a sideways glance.

“What now?” Mike snaps, crossing his arms over his chest as Chester guns the engine. “Didn’t your mom ever teach you this shit? Clunk, click, every trip motherfucker.”

Chester gives him a crooked smile and winds his window down as they pull away from the curb. “My mom was an alcoholic,” he says, “who used to beat me. Then one day she tripped and fell into the pool in our neighbour’s yard. Who knows what she was doing there.”

“She drowned?”

Chester nods.

“You drowned her?”

Chester shrugs. “Bloated, drunk people don’t float. What more can I say?”

Mike stares straight ahead as the road rushes toward them. Cool, night air sweeps in through Chester’s open window and he takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know where they’re going, or who is waiting for them but he’s excited regardless. After a while the city melts into smaller towns that give way to woods. Chester pulls the van off the road and onto a hiking trail. Branches scratch against the van like nails against the inside of a coffin.

As they get deeper into the woods Mike clears his throat. At first he had thought they would be going after campers but there’s nobody here, and spring break isn’t for another month so it’s unlikely there’s going to be anybody partying here. Still, he doesn’t question it. Doesn’t dare. It’s obvious that Chester is still too pissed off with him to speak.

After a while they come to a clearing and Chester mumbles for him to stay in the van. Mike nods and watches him open the door and climb out, still jumping in shock when the door slams. The night is completely silent so he switches on the radio, changing channels until he finds something that isn’t a religious station or static.

Chester opens the back of the van and pulls something out then disappears into a blind spot that can’t be seen no matter how much Mike cranes his neck to look into any of the rear view mirrors. He shrugs and kicks his feet up on the dash and stares at the bobble head Jesus stuck beside his sneakers. Its eyes glow in the dark, its big head looming over its little body with its hands clasped together in prayer. Just looking at the ugly little Jesus tells Mike that this van isn’t Chester’s which means he either stole it or hired it. Either way, the original owner probably won’t ever see it again.

Forty minutes pass before Chester appears again. He is out of breath when he opens the door and pulls the keys out of the ignition, silencing the radio playing AFI’s Miss Murder louder than is probably necessary. He wipes a hand across his sweaty forehead, smearing dirt across his face. His eyes are black and his voice hoarse when he finally speaks. “Get out.”

Mike shivers with something between fear and desire and does as he is told, sliding out of the van and locking the door behind him. He follows Chester around to the back of the van and narrows his eyes at a hole dug there. The shovel he took from the back of the van is stuck in the dirt piled up beside the hole.

“What’s this for?”

Chester goes over to the shovel and pulls it out, weighing it between his hands with his back to Mike who rocks back and forth on his feet.

“Chester?” He tries again. “What’s the hole for?”

Chester spins round with the shovel raised high and smiles a crooked smile. “You,” he says. He swings the shovel, putting all of his weight behind it, cracking Mike around the head with it hard.

It takes an hour to bury him – he will only fit into the grave curled up on his side and manoeuvring him takes a bit of time. Eventually though it’s done, and Chester pats the dirt down on top of the grave with a satisfied smile. He opens the back of the van and throws the shovel in before going around to the driver’s door and climbing in, gunning the engine and driving away with one less problem in his life to deal with.

***

Mike wakes up and he feels sick and dizzy. He can barely breathe and he wishes he hadn’t woken up. He takes a deep breath and inhales dirt and sand and tries not to cry when the realisation dawns on him. He’s been buried alive. Chester probably thought him dead. But that’s not what bothers him – what makes his insides turn to lead more than anything else is the fact that he has been left behind.

He goes back and forth between deciding whether or not to try digging himself out or just letting himself die here. It’s a hard decision that is made for him hours later when something above him scratches, scratches, scratches until daylight breaks through the ground above him and a dog starts barking.

He raises an arm to shields his eyes from the sun and takes deep, gasping breaths. Someone hurries over and falls to their knees screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God, Harry! Harry there’s someone....he’s been buried! Come quick!”

Harry and Suzanne have a cabin on the other side of the woods and walk their dog here, Suzanne explains whilst her husband calls the emergency services. “If Charlie hadn’t dug.... God...I dread to think.”

“Me too,” Mike mumbles miserably.

The ambulance arrives first and, as the paramedics strap him to a gurney the police arrive. Police Chief Chris Gunner hovers over him asking if he remembers anything. Can you tell me anything, Gunner wants to know.

Mike smiles coolly and nods, “I can tell you everything,” he says. And as the ambulance wails its way to the hospital Mike decides that he likes the taste of revenge on his tongue even more than the taste of Chester.


End file.
